Jason Pleau sentenced to life in prison for Woonsocket murder

The murder case that pitted Gov. Lincoln Chafee against federal prosecutors over the issue of the death penalty has been closed with a life prison sentence for Jason Pleau, who shot and killed a Woonsocket gas station manager in 2010.

Pleau was sentenced to life without parole in U.S. District Court by Judge William E. Smith. Pleau, 35, of Providence, shot David Main at close range as Main approached the doorstep of a Woonsocket bank where he was to have deposited the gas station receipts.

Pleau pled guilty in June, 2013 to using a firearm in relation to a federal crime of violence with death resulting.

Chafee, a death penalty opponent, battled in court with federal prosecutors over the death penalty for Pleau. The death penalty has not been used in Rhode Island since the middle of the 19th Century. The prosecutors had originally wanted the option of asking for capital punishment.